Legolas Will Be The Connection Between THE HOBBIT And THE LORD OF THE RINGS Films; More on Stephen Colbert’s Cameo

by Josh "ecksmanfan" Johnson

In just a few more days, J.R.R. Tolkien fans will be able to partake in the third film in Peter Jackson’s film franchise centered on The Hobbit. For the most part, fans loved the first film and rumor has it that Desolation of Smaug is quite the film and fixes a lot of the issues that some folks had with the first film. There will be a few new characters making an appearance in this film, one of which is Legolas, played by Orlando Bloom. It was a bit of a surprise to see that Legolas would be returning, but we have a bit more information on why he was included, but in the big picture, it all makes sense.

As we know, The Hobbit story serves as a prequel of sorts to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, showing the origins of how Bilbo acquires The Ring in the first place and the adventures he goes on with the dwarves and the wizard Gandalf. The Elf Legolas will serve as the connection, along with Bilbo of course, between the two films. Evangeline Lilly, who is playing Tauriel (more on her in just a bit) recently talked about why Legolas is present (via /Film)

Peter, Fran [Walsh] and Philippa [Boyens] brilliantly tied the last Hobbit film to the first Lord of the Rings film through the one character would could do that, which is Legolas.

So, with Tauriel and Legolas, you have two characters that don’t make an appearance in The Hobbit book, but Peter Jackson wanted to have a certain dynamic in regards to the Elven characters, and in order to do that, he wanted to include three Elves: Tauriel, Legolas and the Elven King Thranduil. Here’s what Jackson had to say about that:

People always ask about Evangeline’s character Tauriel and why we felt the need to create her. But in The Hobbit novel, [the dwarves] are captured by the elves and they escape in the barrels. And it’s a memorable part of the book but the Elf King is not even named. He doesn’t have a name. And it was only later on that Tolkien decided it should be Thranduil and he also decided he should have a son when Lord of the Rings was written 18-19 years later. He created the character of the son of the king.

So you’ve got material there but you can’t have a scene in a film that’s a memorable scene with just one person as the Elf. We wanted three Elven characters. That’s the thing too, to create characters and have conflict with each other and they have different agendas. Thranduil, Legolas and Tauriel are all on different flight paths which makes it much more interesting ability for Fran [Walsh] and I to tell the narrative through their eyes.

I’m not a massive Tolkien fan, so this all makes sense to me and I understand that you need to take a few liberties here and there to make things work on film. We can assume that Desolation of Smaug will end with a fairly large cliff-hanger, being that there is one more film left to release next year. We also know that this sequel is quite close to the ending of Tolkien’s story as we know it in the book, so expect there to be a lot of new and created story lines in the third film.

Now, last year, we learned that talk show host and comedian Stephen Colbert had filmed a cameo for The Hobbit films. Just before An Unexpected Journey released last winter, he revealed that the cameo would be a part of Desolation of Smaug. Today, we have a bit more information on that scene he filmed and what to look for when you see the film this weekend. While on The Late Show With David Lettermanlast night (via E! Online), Colbert claims to be the breakout star of the film.

“I’m kind of the breakout star of The Hobbit, Dave. I don’t want to tell anybody where I am, but I am in it. I’m in this next one coming up. I and my wife and my two boys were invited down to New Zealand to play around with the folks in The Hobbit by [director] Peter Jackson. We went down there. We’re in a scene in Lake-town. I don’t want to say where. It’s kind of a Where’s Waldo.”

Just today, The Hobbit screenwriter talked with Vulture also gave us a bit of info on the character Colbert will be playing, saying that “he works for the Master of Lake-town, he works for the politician. He’s one of his spies. So if you keep an eye out for the guy who has a fake eye patch.” So there you go, you now know who to watch for to see the quirky comedian this weekend.

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug hits theaters this weekend, or on Thursday night for the folks who like to stay up all to all hours of the night! There and Back Again will be hitting theaters December 2014.

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